Environmentally speaking, pellets are ideal. Composed of waste wood materials including sawmill residue, municipal landfill waste and even grain crops, wood pellets generate heat without contributing particulate to the atmosphere.
No new trees are cut down to produce the pellets, and due to the high-temperature combustion process used to form the waste materials into the pellet, no additives or glues are necessary to bind them into the pellet shape.
Wood pellets produced from materials that would have gone to landfills in the past are sought out by customers in countries around the world. They realize that in this post-Kyoto Accord world, pellet-fired generators are an economically and environmentally sound way of doing business. Scientists have even said that turning the world towards pellet-fueled energy could help prevent the devastating effects of global warming.
An Improvement Over Existing Energy Sources
Given proper forest and agricultural management, biomass is virtually limitless; what's more, its price is stable. Turning readily available waste products into clean and efficient energy is a terrific environmental benefit. Arsenic, carbon monoxide, and sulphur are just a few of the air and water pollutants resulting from the use of all nonrenewable fossil fuels as sources of heat and energy. Even if the supply of nonrenewable fossil fuel was unlimited, the economic and associated environmental costs of transporting and burning these fuels are simply unsustainable. However, since safe, renewable wood pellets can burn more efficiently than other fuels, emissions from pellte burners meet even the most stringent standards of the EPA.
Kyoto Updates
Progress Update: According to Stavros Dimas, the European Union's environmental policy commissioner, 11,500 bio-mass installations in the EU have generated over 260 million tons of CO
2 credits, valued at over 5 billion euros. The EU's member nations currently produce 4% of their electricity from bio-mass and wish to double this by 2010 through the initiatives setout by the EU Bio-mass Action Plan.
Wood Pellet Association of Canada
9988 Willow Cale Forest Road
Prince George, BC V2N 7A8